Stivers Summer Camp

My friend Lindsay sent me a blog link to a mom who had made up her own summer camp for her kids. This has made me so excited for summer. I am seriously considering doing a modified version of her idea. I love summer time anyway and I think my kids are old enough to do something like this. I'm not saying we will not be signing them up for any activities in the community-- just much less than I did in summers past. We are going to have our own fun at home.

The way I plan to spend several weeks of our summer is on a planned schedule. I'm hoping to have the kids help me to plan the weeks in advance so that I can get what we need ahead of time. And who doesn't love knowing what to expect?

This is how our week will go:

Make it Monday-- this is the day we might make cookies, or a fort, or a volcano. Whatever the projects that the kids have been thinking about. Be sure to make suggestions of what we can make if you have some!

Take a Trip Tuesday-- this is the day of the week that we will be taking our trips to the park or the museum or taking a road trip to see something fun. The trips I'm most looking forward to are our day trips to the farm to see my grandparents. (Who happen to be celebrating 58 years of marriage today!)

Wet Wednesday-- Wednesdays are the day for the pool or the water park of the sprinklers. It's the day we might spend the afternoon at the lake with a picnic.

Thinking Thursday-- this day is planned for learning about things the kids have been thinking about and want to learn more about. It might be birds or weather or basketball. Whatever it is, we will choose one thing each Thursday to think about. I think this will be our library day for us to get books about what we're thinking about. We will also use the internet to find interesting things about what we're thinking about that day. I'm looking forward to those dinner conversations!

Friend Friday-- Friend Friday is the day that all the kids get to chose a friend to have over for the afternoon. I'm hoping that with everyone having someone to play with, it will lessen the fighting over attention with our guests. I rarely let the kids have friends over so I know that this will be a special treat for the kids.

I know this may seem way too structured for the average family during the summer months. However, the children and I do so much better with something planned and expectations set. We are all already looking forward to Stivers Summer Camp!

sibling love

I am trying to get caught up on my blog. Here are some pictures of Drew and Julianna that I was going to share a few months ago....during the blog slump. I just love how sweet they look in these pictures.

 

 

 

I'm pretty sure they love each other.

Some Disney pictures

 These are the pictures my mother in-law took on our recent trip to Florida. It was nice to have someone along that also took pictures so that I could be in some of my own vacation photos for once!

We had a great time. We occasionally had to be creative with our activities or schedules due to stormy weather....and stormy moods. :) But all in all, it couldn't have gone better.

 Before we left for the trip Lily became hyper-focused on altering a dress that she had acquired via hand-me-down from her Grandma Dayna's closet. Lily was determined that she and Grandma Ann would be able to alter it to look just like Belle, from Beauty and the Beast. As the vacation approached, and her demands on Grandma Ann became more specific and difficult to meet, I was worried that we were just setting ourselves up for a meltdown of the century. Surprisingly, Lily did just fine. She was satisfied with the final product. She was so satisfied that by the end of the day the day she wore it to the park, she was pretty sure that she had fooled a few other little girls into believing that they'd actually seen Belle, and not Lily. She did what she could for these confused little girls, waved and smiled like a princess, so that these girls wouldn't be disappointed.

 One day on the trip we went to Sea World. The kids liked the shows. Drew was excited to visit the sharks and everyone was happy to get up close to the dolphins. During the shows Lily sat in the front row determined to get good pictures with her camera and to get as wet as possible.

                                                                                    During the whale show, she succeeded. And she had Tom and Drew sitting with her too. Julianna, Grandma and I stayed where it was dry.

                                                                                                 Mary Poppins is my favorite. However sweet she was though, she did not look like the Mary I remember. Just the same, she chatted with us for a few minutes discussing our favorite parts and how maybe the bank part of the Mary Poppins movie was a little too long for the kiddos. :)

 Lily danced with a belly dancer. The dancer was asking kids to join her and no one would until Lily found out dancing in front of the crowd was an option. She wasted no time after that!

 Here are Drew and Julianna waiting for the fireworks. They were pretty excited to eat those ring pops and managed to make them last a couple of days. Yes, days. Those kinds of things happen when you vacation with Grandma.

Julianna took a little drive on vacation. I love her facial expressions in all of her pictures. This girl knows how to make me laugh. 

We took a ride on a train. 

And saw a fantastic fireworks show. A couple of my children do really well taking naps, staying up late and sleeping in on vacation. The one who doesn't....well, lets just say, when she's a teenager and she wants to sleep in on vacation, I will probably be in her room, in her bed, eating my breakfast and asking her endless questions. Maybe....

 See what I mean about Julianna's facial expressions? These pictures make me laugh out loud every time I see them. She is a ham! She spent most of the vacation with her hands over her ears. At first it was because she was constantly worried about loud noises (there are a lot), but then it became anytime she was worried about anything in general. The theatre is too dark? Hands on her ears. The ride is too bumpy? Hands on her ears. The ocean is too cold? Hands on her ears.

 Typically, Drew stays by my side in all situations. He is a nervous type that likes to stay close to his safety person. I didn't see that nervous boy on the beach. He LOVED IT. He spend all day on that boogie board. All day. He loved the waves and the water and the sand and the sun. He would live there if he could. So would I. It was my first swimming experience in the ocean. The ocean is now my most favorite places on the planet. I'm already dreaming of the day I can go back.

Julianna was nervous about the moving water. She played in the sand in a puddle of water. Eventually the tide came up to meet her and she didn't mind it after that. My only regret about the beach is that we didn't go sooner. I would have done less amusement park and more beach for sure. 

Drew was sure this is what it's like to ride a wave. 

This is one of only a couple of pictures of Lily. We couldn't get any more at the beach because she spent too much time out in the waves. She went so far that Tom and I had to go out to retrieve her on a couple of occasions. She, obviously, loved the ocean. 

a preview

I didn't forget about the blog while we were out of town. Here is a preview of what my next post will be like:

We went to Disney World for vacation. Everything at Disney is a production. Even, according to Julianna, poop. One day while I was helping her in the bathroom, she exclaimed, "Ta da!" when she had completed going to the bathroom.

I promise when I have pictures and time I will post again!

our travels home

Our flight was scheduled to leave at 7:20 AM. Our resort bus schedules our departure times from the resort based on our flight time. They like to leave three hours beforehand. This meant that our bus was going to be pulling out at 4:20 in the AM. The lobby, where the bus leaves, was actually about a half mile walk from our room. We arranged bell service to pick up our bags for us and take us to the lobby. The latest time the had available that would work for us was 3:30. Based on those times, Tom and I decided that we could just walk to the bus stop around 4 and give the kids an extra 30 minutes of sleep. We ended up rushing out of our room at 4:10...and running all the way to the bus stop.

The other highlight of the morning was Julianna and her vomit. We really have no reasonable explanation for the vomiting, besides having to wake up in the middle of the night, but vomit she did. As we were walking out the door. And then again several times on the bus. I caught it all with napkins and her blanket...we pretended she was coughing and tried not to draw attention to ourselves. Thankfully I had left her in her jammies, so when we got to the airport I was able to clean her up and change her into clean clothes. I didn't allow her to eat or drink anything until the second flight because I was terrified of her starting to throw up again.

Other than that, and the pure exhaustion everyone was feeling, we did pretty well on the way home. Julianna caught a few cat naps and Drew slept on the second flight. Lily was reasonably well behaved...for the most part. I can say that I feel terribly guilty when I'm the one with screaming children on a flight. For those of you without children: a kind glance in a parent's direction, or a gesture of understanding of any kind, is much appreciated. That didn't actually happen for me, but I know it would have made me feel better. Pretending not to notice the screaming child is not helpful and makes me only feel worse. (Not that it's your job to make me feel better about my screaming kid. I'm just saying, I really am doing everything I can to keep them quiet and happy. They really are good kids. I'm a good mom. And sometimes kids just get tired.)

I'm really glad that we went on this spectacular vacation. It was an easy place to have fun as a family and create really happy memories. However, I am still a very big fan of road trips and simple family vacations. I really am looking forward to our next vacation. We will not fly. We will not stay in a fancy resort. We will cook our own meals and make our own entertainment. And I can promise you that we will have many wonderful happy memories from that vacation too.

Hollywood Studios

There isn't much to Hollywood Studios for children really. We rode a cool ride, saw Beauty and the Beast (the much abbreviated musical), saw a puppet show with some of the shows from Disney Jr. and ate lunch at Pizza Planet (from Toy Story!). The kids were tired and Tom and I were even more tired.

By far the highlight for Drew and I was meeting Buzz and Woody. When we arrived at the Pixar area in the morning Drew and I jumped in line and quickly found out that Buzz would be leaving in 10 minutes (it was a 25 minute wait) and would not be back until 4:10 that afternoon. Drew decided that meeting Woody without Buzz would be okay with him...so we waited. We made it in to see Woody..hugged posed and done. After that we went with the others to ride rides and watch shows. Tom and I planned for this day to be short. We knew we would all be tired and didn't want to drag everyone around. At 3:30 we got in line for our last stop: A Little Mermaid show. I knew that Buzz was Drew's favorite character and I knew I would regret no at least giving him the chance to meet him. I porposed to Drew that we miss the last show and wait in line to meet Buzz. He agreed.

We got there so early that we were about forth in line. We waited for so long that we made friends with the people in front of us. Such good friends that when Drew suddenly needed to go to the bathroom, they saved our place in line. Buzz came right on time and Drew waited patiently. When we got to Buzz and Woody I explained that we'd be there earlier and met Woody, but that Buzz was his favorite...even more than Mickey. Buzz as really excited to hear this and posed for some extra pictures with Drew and Drew was beaming. It was well worth the wait in line!

While waiting our turn to meet Buzz one of the Disney employees commented on Drew's pirate shirt. We told her that we'd already been to the pirate tutorial. She said that that was her favorite thing at Disney....uhhhh, really? But then she explained that a few years ago Johnny Depp had actually secretly come to Disney World and played his character Jack Sparrow. It makes me wonder who else is hiding behind a costume and the most magical place on Earth.

So, that pretty much wraps up the highlights of our last day. I know I will have more to share, but I don't know when our what it will be....until then, have a nice weekend.

yesterday's report

Yesterday started with rain. Tom wanted to stay home and wait for it to blow over. I did not. I wanted to put on some ponchoes and head to Disney. I won and I'm glad I did. The crowds were way less than any other day at Disney. Apparently most people didn't want to get out in the rain. And then when it cleared up around noon, no one wanted to use their ticket to Magic Kingdom for only half of a day. So it worked out beautifully for us.

First thing we did yesterday was head straight for the princess meeting spot. You can meet Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Belle all in one stop. Drew was not intersted in even greeting the priceness, but Lily and Julianna were excited. All of the characters do a splendid job of carrying on one way coversations with children. They were all so sweet and made Lily feel special. In the end, Lily said that she liked Sleeping Beauty's dress the best (interestingly enough, Tom and I had discussed that hers was the worst costume) but that she like Belle the best. I agree with Lily. Belle was the most real and down to earth princess of the bunch. She managed to get Lily, Drew and Julianna to speak to her. Ouite lovely, I'm sure.

We hit all the major rides after the princess visit. And because the crowds were so small, we hit one of our favorites more than once. If you have only one day to spend at Disney World, it should be the Magic Kingdom. Everywhere you look is magical and it just feels special. I am having trouble remembering how we spent the rest of our morning yesterday. I know that Tom and Lily rode Splash Mountain. Lily had a good time but wasn't aware that she was going to get wet on the water ride. I'm not sure why that was a problem anyway, as she was wearing a poncho and the rain had stopped...but what can I say?

We did manage to make it back to the hotel at about one o'clock. We really wanted to rest in the afternoon so that we could stay late for the night time parade and fireworks show. I'm so glad that Drew, Julianna and Tom all had naps. They were so tired that we managed to get naps and get back to the park before 5 o'clock.

We had dinner at a fancy storybook castle type pizza joint. There was a wish book to write your wishes in. Lily wished that her hair would be long...I wish that I could make that happen for her overnight...but alas, I don't have such well connected Disney friends to make that happen.

After dinner we caught another dance party with Goofy and Pluto. Lily danced with and hugged Pluto and Julianna played peek-a-boo with him. It was so cute!!

For the record, I am not a parade person. I can barely force myself to attend local parades for my children. Miles of classic cars, a firetruck and the Shriner's don't do it for me. However, Disney knows how to do parades. It was breathtaking. The night time parade was floats and characters covered in lights. The kids were mesmerized. I got some excellent pictures and videos of them enjoying the parade. It was packed (even with the lighter crowd). We were smashed, but had a great time.

After the parade were the world famous fireworks behind Cinderella's castle. Drew and Julianna did not enjoy them too much. I think they were too tired after a long day and the fireworks were too loud. Lily was pretty impressed and amazed at the show. I think part of it was because the fireworks are put to music and song. The song talked about making wishes and having them come true. All you have to do is wish for what your want, etc. Jiminy Cricket didn't mention anything about hard work and perseverance to making your wishes come true..but I suppose that lesson comes later.

I hope that my brain is still functioning tomorrow when we get home. Our bus will come pick us up to go to the airport at 3:30 AM. We don't get to pick our departure time to the airport, obviously. Anyway, since I  should be sleeping now, I will wrap this up for tonight. I will do my final wrap-up and assessment of vacation, traveling with young children and Disney World sometime this weekend. If my brain is still inside my skull, that is.

Disney Day 3: Animal Kingdom

This is the park that I was looking forward to the least. What can I say- I just don't get a kick out of wildlife. That being said, it did turn out to have some really cool highlights. Today we were at the park right at opening time. We went straight to the Jungle Safari. It was pretty neat, if you like that sort of thing. There were elephants, rhinos, hippos and everything you might see in a real African safari. It was really quite amazing to see the African Savannah right here in Florida. However, if you live in Kansas, and have been to the Sedgewick County Zoo, you're not too far behind the actual animal exhibits in Animal Kingdom.

So, the highlights included two shows and a roller coaster. We went to see It's a Bugs Life, which is a 3-D show that stars: bugs, of course. It was super cool. It's really amazing and we were sprayed by a stink bug and showered with some other bugs goo. Tom and I really liked the show but I think the kids were a little young for it. At one point the lights go completely out while a mean scary bug taunts you....I heard a familiar cry during that time...it turned out to be Lily. She did not enjoy the show. At all. In fact, she really didn't enjoy much of anything for the entire morning. She was overtired and completely impossible to please. No, she didn't want to wear that, eat that, see that or be here. Basically she needed a nap but wasn't going to take one.

After lunch everyone seemed to wake up and feel better, so we went to the next amazing show. Finding Nemo, the musical, done with puppets. So out of control! Lily and Drew sat and watched completely in awe of the whole show. I thought that Julianna was really into, too. Wrong. The poor baby had fallen asleep. One hand with her thumb in her mouth and one hand over her ear. She was just wiped out. In fact, she slept after that for almost two hours. She stayed asleep during a transfer to the stroller and after a solid jostling from Lily. Anyway, I cannot convey to you the amazingness of the Nemo show. I love musicals and I love Nemo. It was pure awesomeness. The show also taught me that my kids can handle a show like that. I wasn't quite sure I could depend on them to sit and pay attention to a show like that. Now I know...there's going to be a lot more dramatic musicals in their future. :)

Lastly, Lily and I went on the roller coaster. The biggest and scariest roller coaster that I have ever been on. In. My. Life. I swear to you I was clinging to her more for my own sanity than I was to comfort her. It was so fast, loud and downright scary. My mind is made up. I will not be riding the scary rides anymore. It just isn't fun for me to be scared. Why in the world would I want to induce fear in myself? Pure craziness. I must be getting old. Really, really old. Lily said that she liked it, but that she'd like to be a little older before she rides on it again. And that next time she'll wear ear plugs because it was so loud.

We tried to make this a short day. We made it back to our hotel at about 3:45. Tom took the girls down to the pool and I laid down with Drew. He did go to sleep finally, but now I'm regretting my decision. Because right now he's in the 'bedroom' with the girls chatting to himself while they sleep. Tomorrow I'm going to make him power through with no nap so that he'll be ready to sleep when everyone else is. Right now, I'm going to take my piece of chocolate cake and my Kindle and I'm going to take a long soak in our ginormous tub. No, I'm serious, it's huge. I could nearly fit all of my blog readers in the tub with me. It's going to be awesome.

Oh, one more thing. I'd like to note that in Florida, with all the humidity, Julianna has really great hair. She has perfectly sweet little ringlets all over her head. So, so sweet! Also, the kids have gotten an allowance of $20 each to spend on whatever they choose. So far Lily has purchased a fancy Japanese fan and Drew purchased a Mickey Mouse ears hat.

I hope that everybodies week is going well. I miss you all and wish that you were here to share these awesome experiences with us.

Disney Day 2: Epcot, the story

The kids were up and ready to hit the parks at 6:30 this morning. We were expecting an early morning, but it didn't make it any easier to wake ourselves up. As you can see from the title, today was Epcot. Yesterday this meant nothing to me besides I knew that that is the park that has the giant ball. Today I know better. Today I know that I could go to this park everyday for at least a month and not see everything there is to see.

Lily really wanted to start the day with a ride on one of the rides that she knew nothing about. We spent some time trying to explain to her that this wasn't like the state fair. That there was going to be so much more to do than ride the rides- she wasn't convinced until we finally made it to our first exhibit.

We started with Nemo and Friends - which was pretty amazing. We all hopped on a seashell and zipped through a show with the characters from Nemo hologrammed into a real aquarium. So there was Nemo and all his buddies swimming right there with all the other fish. Once we were off that ride it was actually a real aquarium that we walked around and saw all sorts of cool stuff including dolphin, manatees, sharks and stingrays. Very cool.

During the months leading up to this trip Tom didn't hours upon hours of research. He has noted every place in every park that we can buy Barq's Root Beer. He knows where to buy the most gooey cinnamon rolls. And he also knows all of the cool things to show the kids. One of the things that I was most looking forward to sharing with the kids was the Turtle Talk with Crush. It's a real-time interactive show with the computer animated sea turtle, Crush, from Finding Nemo. It was everything that I imagined, but neither of my children were moved to raise their hand to actually speak to the turtle, but it was still Ahhh-mazing. The animated turtle was having conversations with the kids and kept us all laughing.

After that show was lunch and after lunch we were planning on leaving for naptime. However, Julianna fell asleep on the way to the bus...so we made the crazy choice to just stay at the park and let her sleep there. Tom and Lily went and rode an amazing ride (Soarin) while Julianna slept and Drew and I wandered around the World Showcase. While in England we saw MARY POPPINS! I was beside myself, but Drew did not get quite as excited as I was. It made my day to meet Mary. She was exactly as she was supposed to be. :)

I hate to rush this, but I can barely keep my eyes open. Lily met Jasmine and Aladin. She asked Aladin where his monkey Abu was. She was thrilled to find out that Aladin suspected he was somewhere in the park stealing everyone's food. We also caught a glimpse and wave from Belle and the Beast. I also saw Alice from Alice in Wonderland, but Drew didn't get it.

To wrap up the day we went back to the hotel and then back to the park for dinner. We stayed up extra late to watch the fireworks that were beyond amazing. Drew sat with his mouth gaping open and Lily just kept saying, "WOW! Wow!" Julianna sat with her hands over her ears and trying to keep her eyes open. She failed. She fell asleep during the fireworks. Poor baby.

Okay, I'm going to sign off here. I hope that I've remembered the highlights. My brain has turned to mush. Good night.

Disney Day 2: Epcot

This is our day in pictures. I promise to write more tomorrow. We are headed back to Epcot now so we can see the amazing fireworks.  

Disney Day 1: Travel

Today we left our house at about 9:30 am and after dropping Romeo off at the doggie motel, we were off to the airport. Now, I know that we have the anticipation of vacation and Mickey on our side, but flying with three young children was nearly a breeze. There were a few moments for me where Julianna was getting grumpy and yelling for something she couldn't have, but that was about the only hitch....for me. Tom, on the other hand, sat with Lily and Drew on the other side of the aisle. At about 3 pm Lily lost all control of her body. She became a whirling dervish if I've ever seen one. I may have gotten the most concentrated death stare from Tom that I've ever received...and Tom has given me some looks! Anyway, other than the hour of Lily in la-la land, it was a really good day - something I would not hesitate to try again.

When we arrived in Orlando we stopped to get some dinner at the lovely McDonald's, which is really dreadful, but simple. We then hopped on a train to get to the main terminal of the airport. Lily saw the palm trees and exclaimed, "Are those REAL PALM TREES??!!" Yes, yes they were. And yes, that is a REAL ORANGE TAXI!! At one point Tom heard her say, "It's so pretty I could cry!" That one really makes me laugh and want to cry myself all at the same time.

Tom told me before we came to the great Disney World that everything at the resort is completely family friendly and he was correct. From the time we hopped on a bus to head to our hotel to the moment we arrived at our room for bed, everything has been so easy. There was a movie to watch on the bus, then a sing-a-long in the lobby of our hotel and then each child got a fancy balloon to take with us to the room. I am in awe of all the fun and excitement in store for us tomorrow.

I  promise there will be pictures with tomorrows post. Tom is too tired to wait for me to load them to the blog tonight.

Talk to you tomorrow!